[Intro]
C C C C
[Verse]
C F C
Started out as a light in my father's eye at a Texaco
G F G
Mama was workin' overnights on Sam Wilson Road
C
She was a mad-capped teenage runaway
F C
A year past graduation
G
She was new in town and he was burnin' down
F G
A place with infatuation
[Chorus]
F G
She fired red hot, buckshot
C F
'Til stress called across the parkin' lot
F G
The revelry went from the feelin'
C F
Now they're rootin' around for a little repose
F G
They chase sunrise, the moon is shinin'
C F
I been tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night
Am G C C
Started out as a light in Carolina
F Dm C C
I started out as a light in Carolina
[Verse]
C
Well I started out as a light in my mother's eye
F C
Many years ago
G
In the numbing fires of live wires
F G
Loose in foster homes
C
From my grandpa's fist to my mother's lip
F C
There's an ancestral impression
G F G
An American inheritance of trauma and depression
[Chorus]
F G
She fired red hot, buckshot
C F
'Til stress called across the parkin' lot
F G
The revelry went from the feelin'
C F
Now they're rootin' around for a little repose
F G
They chase sunrise, the moon is shinin'
C F
I been tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night
Am G C C
Started out as a light in Carolina
F Dm C C
I started out as a light in Carolina
[Break]
F C
From the birth canal
F C
To the whistle of emergency sirens
F Am
You've got a lot of skins to wear
Dm G G G F
As you try to figure out who you are
F G
It don't matter what people say
C F
Don't expect them to understand
[Outro]
F G G C
They ain't bobody no one elses mistake
F
Life is not always the things you planned
Dm G G F
Some of us have childhoods that aren't poems on the side
F G
But darlin' you're doin' alright